Leonardville

The larger neighborhood out of which Atlantic Highlands has grown into a progressive borough, had been known for half a century before as Leonardville. The post office was Leonardville, always kept by a Leonard, and much of the business and farming enterprises of the vicinity were under the control of members of the Leonard family — Leonards by blood even when not distinctly so in name. Indeed, the founding of Atlantic Highlands itself was due to the efforts of Mr. Thomas Henry Leonard. The borough, in fact, is made up of the land which constituted his farm, the farm of his brother, the late James H. Leonard, and those of Edward Hooper and Nathaniel Roberts, both deceased.

The family, which became so numerous as well as enterprising, first located in Monmouth County in 1675, coming from Taunton, Massachusetts, with the idea of developing iron interests in New Jersey, which flourished in Monmouth at that time. Leonardville post office [in 1903] still exists and in the same crossroads general store in which it always was. This is just without the limits of Atlantic Highlands and Leonardville Road passes it, extending on through the charming country westward to historic old Middletown.